Safety Showers
by Sam St. James
Summary: What happens if two people who don't have a clue about how safety showers work try to test if they are functioning properly? Read and find out!


**Safety Showers**

"Hey, what's going on here?" Gwen sounded confused as she saw the relatively unusual bustling activity in the Hub when she entered through the cog door. She had had the half day off and came now to switch with Tosh who had the rest of the evening and the night off.

"Yearly security check ups." Jack answered with that usual smile of his, strolling down the stairs to meet her. "You're with me." The grin widened and he pointed in direction of the medical bay and the cellar.

Gwen didn't like going down in the cellars, the incident with the Cyberwoman still haunted her sometimes. But she obviously had no choice in that matter, as Jack didn't look like he'd take a no as an answer easily – he never did. She sighed, trying to hide a smile. He always seemed to be bouncing with some strange kind of excitement which was pretty much contagious actually. Gwen had learned her lessons well with all these near death experiences. Being around Jack usually meant being absolutely petrified by the situation but at the same being swept away by a wave of bliss; since she had joined Torchwood she felt so much more alive!

"Hang on; I'm just getting rid of my bag and stuff."

***

"So what exactly are we doing?" Gwen looked at him quizzically, when she followed him down to the med-bay.

"As I said: security inspection." The confused look didn't vanish, so he went on explaining. "You know, with all that potentially dangerous stuff around here, we have to check at least once a year that everything is as safe as possible under the given circumstances. Look if all the toxic waste gets into the right waste bins, if the separation between toxic, non-toxic, light and heavy metal residua works fine and if things have to be autoclaved after usage, check if the steriliser oven and the eyeshowers are functioning properly..."

"We have eyeshowers?" Gwen interrupted him, feeling obviously uneasy. Jack could understand that; a lot of people were pretty much protective when it came to their eyes and alone the thought of using eyeshowers made them feel uncomfortable.

"Yeah well, you know with this semi-laboratory of Owen here at the med-bay and all the other dangerous things that might fall through the rift and then be examined here by us, we have to have all this kind of stuff."

"I didn't even know we had things like that! What's it good for if nobody knows about it?"

"Well, that's why you're with me and I'm going to show you. Okay?"

***

"Jack, this is ridiculous! I mean, I understand all these safety measures... rules and regulations and stuff... but check the safety showers? We won't need them anyways." Gwen complained carrying an empty ten litre bucket and eyeing the safety showers – which she actually just realised for the first time since she had joined Torchwood – suspiciously.

"You never know, what if... Owen burns or something, or there is an explosion and green slime everywhere? You'd be glad that we have safety showers in this corridor. That's why, at least once a year during our security inspection we have to check if they really work. You might remember that some of the plumbing system here is still from the beginning of the last century, so... we sometimes have some problems with that. And I don't want anyone to be injured just because we didn't check."

"Okay, okay... I get it." She sounded defeated, looking warily at the conspicuous red triangular handle of one of the four safety showers dangling from the tunnel ceiling right in front of her. "So how are we supposed to do it? Is there any protocol?"

Jack shook his head. "No. According to Ianto who did this last year it's pretty simple. Pull the handle and catch the water in a bucket. Sound's easy enough?"

"Yeah... so I'll take the bucket and you pull the handle?" Holding the bucket above her head directly beneath the shower head Gwen still didn't sound very happy.

"I don't think you have to hold it that high."

"Jack, just pull the handle already, okay?"

"Okay, as you wish, my lady." He replied feeling a grin plaster across his face; so much for self-control. Gwen had given him so much, she made him feel alive and human in a way he hadn't felt in a lot of years. "I hope it won't get to heavy for you, though."

With that Jack pulled the red handle and water began to spill out. A lot of water in fact, a lot more water than neither Jack nor Gwen had expected and it did not only pour directly down in one bundled up jet of water but also spread sideways, causing droplets of water to hit not only the surrounding walls but also both of them. In an attempt to hide herself from the merciless cold water Gwen tried to crouch a bit more under the bucket, only causing more water to spill actually.

"God Jack, shut it down already!"

"I would but I dunno how..." Jack said who had surprised taken a step back to not get too wet. "I expected it to shut off when I stop pulling!"

"You don't know how?" Gwen practically yelled at him, still trying to find some shelter and at the same time keep holding onto the rapidly filling bucket. It was getting heavier and heavier with any second that passed. "How about push the handle back up?"

"Oh well, that never even occurred to me!" He retorted cynically, his face, shirt and hair already sprinkled with fine water droplets.

Gwen was obviously losing her patience just now, handing him the bucket with a sigh, ignoring the jets of water this course of action caused to drench them thoroughly. "Never mind... take the bucket."

Jack more or less spilled most of the contents of the almost full bucket – on Gwen – before he got a good grip on it while Gwen shoved at the handle with all her might. At first it didn't move, as it was obviously stuck or Jack would have stopped the water already, but then it moved and the constant spray of ice-cold water pouring down on them got smaller and finally stopped.

Gwen turned to stare at him; he had still been holding the bucket above his head, though it wouldn't do any good anymore since they already were drenched down to their bones and roughly estimated 30 litres of icy water flooded the floor. Her steps were making splashing sounds in the water on the floor which stood on the tiles about two centimetres high and had already seeped into their shoes. She tugged at her soggy jeans which was seemed to be glued to her legs and started to giggle. The giggling turning into a full fletched hysterical laughter only seconds later. "God... this is hilarious. I'm glad we don't have any surveillance cameras down here... we'd never hear an end of it." She barely choked out between her fits of laughter and Jack couldn't help but join her in laughing. She was right, this was bloody hilarious. They were standing there in the corridor, both completely drenched and water pooling at their feet.

"We need something to wipe that mess up. You think we have some cloth somewhere?" She was still laughing so hard her words were barely understandable.

"Yeah... I think so." Jack moved over to one of the storage rooms, followed by Gwen; first their steps were splashing in the water, it sounded as if they were walking in wellingtons and then leaving prominent wet footprints on the dry parts of the floor. He rummaged through a closet slightly unsure but finally tugged some kind of two metres long hairy wet-mop covering out. "Looks as if that's the only thing we have."

"Where is the rest of it, you know the mop?"

Jack shrugged. "No idea. That's not really the kind of work I normally do. But that's the best we have."

"Yeah whatever… Come on... or we'll get a serious problem if the water seeps into the floor or something. Besides... this can't get any worse." And again she started to giggle uncontrollably.

So each of them took one end of the hairy mop covering and started to wipe up water in unison, crouching down and then wringing it out over the bucket when it was soaked up with water. Which sounded easier as it was, because first of all, they were still laughing all the time, or at least continuously giggling and second, the mop covering was too big for one person alone to wring out, so each had to grip one end of the folded package and then turn it in the opposite direction. With all their laughing this caused most of the wiped up water to be spilled again onto the floor and not into the bucket.

And it caused physical proximity.

"I think this really wasn't in the job description." Gwen burst out laughing again while they were working on wringing out the mop. She slightly looked up at him, her lips curved into one hell of a smile, her exceptionally big eyes full of joy, so full of life and her face flushed from the physical work they were doing. And suddenly the fact that they were so close, almost touching and that her wet clothes were clinging to her body like a second skin, accentuating her very delicate female curves, that he could feel her warm breathing tickle on his lightly cold and wet skin, that water droplets were hanging in her hair like small shining pearls, sprang to his mind, smothering any coherent thought.

Before he knew what he was doing, before he could prevent himself from doing anything reckless, their lips were meeting. He let go of the wet mop, his hands burying himself in the hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her even closer. Gwens eyes became wide in surprise, her hand losing her grip on the mop, which fell down into the water splashing water on both of their already soggy trousers.

"God... I'm so in love with you Gwen." He heard himself whisper huskily before he could stop himself, before common sense would prevent him from shattering her world – yet again – when he finally let go of her lips so that she would be able to catch her breath.

***

Sooo, that's it. I hope you enjoyed it. And yeah I know, I'm nasty for pulling off a cliff-hanger like that ^^. The probably following sequel (not promising anything here) will be a new story, though – since the mood and rating are going to change.

A/N: The safety shower test or rather the disastrous but hilarious funny outcome is actually based onto real-life experience. Of course it wasn't Gwen and Jack, and there was no romance in it. It was just a biological-technical assistant at the lab and me, having a really good (and terribly drenching...) time on a Friday morning.

The problem was: she was tall enough to pull the handle, but too short to push it back up (plus it was somehow jammed or something) – which left me with a problem since I had been holding the bucket. So it was necessary to hand her the bucket – which was ridiculous, since, as I said she is short, so it didn't really help. In the end, when I finally stopped the water from pouring down onto us we were laughing like maniacs about the idiocy of the situation.

It took us about half an hour to wipe up the approximately 20 litres of water on the floor. Not to mention all the fun our co-workers had when they found out. One of our colleagues came by and asked (trying not to choke on the laughter): "If you two are done bathing, you wanna come with me for lunch?"

Our boss was also laughing her ass off, complaining that she hadn't been able to film it with her mobile. God, I'm so glad we don't have any surveillance cameras...

Well… I think… even without a video we're never going to hear an end of it anyway. Plus by now probably the whole university will know, since also people from other workgroups saw us wiping the floor, looking like half-drowned rats.

But well… it was soooo funny. My stomach still hurts from so much laughing.

The moral of the story is: **never ever** pull the handle of a safety shower if you're not sure how to stop the water, or if you're not wearing a swimsuit or something!


End file.
